"Exactly!" said Judge Black. "Do you see them staying women?"
"Women of the past," said Elizabeth.
"That is woman,—the women of the past. There isn't any other. The eternal feminine—"
"I think you are limiting the eternal and denying the universe power to evolve," said Elizabeth. "Why not eternally the man of the past? Why not 'There isn't any other'? Why not 'The eternal masculine'? Why do you change and grow from age to age?"
"I'm not so sure that they do," said Marie sotto voce.
"Yes, they do! They grow and become freer always; though I think," said Elizabeth painfully, "that they lag in the way they look at women.—Well, if you grow, being one half, do you suppose that we are not going to grow, being the other half? And if you think that the principle of growth is not in us, still I shouldn't worry! If we can't grow, we won't grow, and you needn't fash yourselves. On the other hand, if we can, we will—and that is all there is about it. And it wouldn't do you the least harm to read Ibsen—nor to get another definition of 'decadent.'"
She leaned forward in her chair. "Do you see that strip of blanched grass there?—or rather it was blanched yesterday when that board over there was lying upon it and had lain, I don't know how long!—blanched and bent and sicklied over. Now look! It is getting colour and standing straight—only beginning, but it is beginning—beginning to be on terms with the sun! Well, that grass is woman to-day! The heavy board is being lifted, and that's the change and all the change—and you find it 'pernicious'!"
Glowing-cheeked, she ceased speaking. Judge Black's colour, too, had heightened. "My dear Miss Eden, how did all this begin? I'm the last person in the world to deny to woman a proper freedom. I only ask that it shan't go beyond a certain point—that it shan't threaten the unsettling of a certain divine status quo—"
"I doubt if a divine status quo is ever unsettled, Judge Black," said Elizabeth. "But there—but there!" She smiled, and she had a very sweet, sunny smile. "I didn't in the least mean to quarrel! Tom will have told you that I sometimes use my tongue, and that's the ancient woman, still, isn't it? You see I care for women—being one—a good deal."